"Whether you like or dislike Torchwood, it has an essence - of madness and cheekiness and sexiness, and fun and darkness, those sort of polar facets of what it's about, of putting those things together - and somehow it lost a bit of that somewhere in the process," Chibnall told Starburst.

"When we were first talking about it, it was something a bit bolder, a bit cheekier. It may just come back to the fact that one of the great essences of Torchwood was taking those American tropes and doing them in Wales.

"In a way, that's what made Torchwood so brilliantly odd. Once you put it in California, it becomes more like other shows."